After over a year of planning we have officially begun building the new shop. I have assembled my team, the architect, the civil engineer, the plumber, the building fabricator, the list goes on and on. I have done my due diligence the best I can, the vetting is complete and now the hard part, to be vulnerable and trust.

During the first week I was in a deep state of self-introspection and mild panic. I allowed myself, to explore the feelings of someone who was spending a large sum of their hard earned money on services. There is an enormous amount of unspoken vulnerability happening when a client signs a contract and cuts a check, especially with working with contractors, who’s contracts are scribbled on old paper bags, if written at all.

When a client and I go under contract I always have a feeling of heightened responsibility that never seems to fully go away, even when the project is complete. I am, of course entrusted by my clients to do what is in the proposal. But what they expect of my work cannot be written in any proposal. Clients trust me to give them my best and to be treated fairly through an often convoluted process. It’s an awesome responsibility that I do not take lightly and as I am putting myself in the most vulnerable financial positions of my life I am appreciating the newly heightened empathy for those that put their trust in us.